Tiger Toes
by Jukebox Hound
Summary: NaruSasu. “Catch a tiger by the toe.” Naruto kept the tiger no matter how loudly it hollered. Or should that be ‘raven’? Post timeskip, oneshot.


**Pairing**: NaruSasu  
**Summary**: "Catch a tiger by the toe." Naruto kept the tiger no matter how loudly it hollered. Or should that be 'raven'? Post timeskip.

I have a whole philosophy on why Sasuke and Naruto work, but that's not really the point of this oneshot. Truth be told, I'm not entirely what the point _is_.

* * *

**Tiger Toes  
**_**Hades' Phoenix**_

"He's like a tiger," Naruto heard one of the fangirls say. "Wild. _Untamable_."

"No, he's more like a raven," another disagreed. "Look at his hair, at the depth of his eyes. Look at his _tragedy_."

Who the hell are they talking about? he wondered, wandering closer. Whoever the poor guy was, he pitied him, if this was what the mystery man had to put up with all the time. Besides, didn't ravens hoard every shiny thing they could get their claws on? Maybe that was crows, or magpies or something.

Being the super-cool ninja he was, Naruto was able to get close to the gaggle of fangirls, all of whom were hovering not-so-casually around a market stall and staring across the street. He followed their line of sight and wasn't sure if he should be laughing or weeping when he found a familiar dark figure.

"He's brooding," one of the pre-pubescent girls whispered breathlessly, as though glaring through half-lidded eyes into a teacup was the sexiest thing since crotch-less teddies. Naruto stared at Sasuke and just saw a sullen guy wishing violent death on his poor teacup with the power of his mind. A quick glance at the girls revealed that, no, they weren't wearing rose-tinted glasses, and they were indeed looking at Sasuke like starving dogs at a steak. He thought Obsessive Sasuke Fangirling might be a genetic defect unique to the fairer sex, like a sort of tunnel vision that blocked out the brunet's bastard-ness, but Sakura had (mostly) gotten over her own crush before they'd even brought him back from Otogakure and Tenten just ignored him. Temari openly flipped him off whenever they crossed paths, so that theory couldn't be right.

Quickly getting bored with the whole thing—fangirls had been a common sight around Sasuke since before his balls had dropped—Naruto gave up his lurking and crossed the crowded street before his Fangirl-Repelling Aura kicked in. Sasuke, sitting in his own gloomy little world at the tea stall, didn't react when a bright, shiny-orange Naruto dropped into the seat beside him.

"Teme. I'm bored."

"Fuck off."

"No, really, I'm _really _bored."

Sasuke's glare of mind-power death transferred from the tea to Naruto's face. Naturally, the blond barely noticed it.

"What do you like better, tigers or ravens?"

The glare intensified and darkened. Still no effect.

"You bite and growl like a pissed-off cat, but you really like shiny things."

"…I do _not_ like shiny things."

In response, Naruto tilted a kunai stuck through his belt very slightly, just enough to make the sunlight flash off the metal. Immediately Sasuke's eyes flickered to it.

"Ha! Teme, you're so full of shit."

"You flashed a fucking weapon, dobe," Sasuke snarled, "it's called ninja instinct."

"No, a ninja's instinct would let him see the weapon without reacting, but you so totally reacted! Raven! Caw, caw!"

"Shut up."

"Caw!" he bellowed. "Hey, Sasuke's a raven! Caw, caw!"

Naruto had to cut off the taunting in his mad dash to avoid Sasuke's flying chokuto. Laughing crazily, he led a merry chase over the rooftops, and the only reason he wasn't lying on the ground with a blade in his throat was because he'd been fully expecting the attack from the second he'd opened his mouth in Sasuke's presence. People in the streets below barely looked up, since one boy chasing the other in a berserker's rage had become about as regular as the sunrise.

"Can't catch me, raven! Caw!"

"Fucking _die!_"

"Gee, I think he might be angry," Naruto panted to himself, and then went tumbling through the door of his apartment when his foot caught on the step. An instant later Sasuke was on top of him with bitten-out curses and bite-giving teeth, snarling and tearing and basically trying to rip flesh from bone. Naruto barked out a foxy adrenaline-fueled laugh and managed to grab Sasuke the not-tiger by the…

Well. By something that made the brunet arch a feline back and let out a serpentine hiss, his long fingers curl into claws against the ratty old carpet and his teeth bite into his own lips. Apparently Sasuke's body was adaptable but Naruto was all fox, and that mischievousness had the blond grinning gleefully as he caught the boy and kept him, not letting him go even though Sasuke was still managing to curse at him and their clothes weren't going to be very functional after this.

What Sasuke would sooner shoot himself in the foot for rather than admit was that Naruto wasn't really, entirely, _completely_ wrong, because Naruto was very shiny indeed and Sasuke couldn't help trying to hoard all of him—even if only so he could kill the idiot himself.


End file.
